God speed, Moose

The War overseas got very real for me today. Today I drove two hours to Wilmington to say Goodbye and God speed to my cousin Seamus. He was supposed to be deploying to Afghanistan in late September but they moved up his date to next Thursday. We had a party planned for him with a lot of my family being able to come up and say Bon Voyage, and give longer than usual hugs while fighting back tears and trying to stay cheerful. I dodged the bullet on this war twice. My Dad had already retired from the Navy in 1995 and he is "disabled" so they won't be calling him back up. My brother managed to get out of the Air Force in time to not be sent over either. I have a few friends from high school that have been deployed, served their time abroad, come back home, and a few of them sent again. I have many friends whose husbands are serving overseas right now. But seeing my baby cousin - he would argue that he's not a baby... He's 25 by the way - getting all geared up to go fight this war that not many support anymore is just heartbreaking. I held it together long enough to tell him his first care package would include as many cheese balls as I could fit into the box (an inside joke between us) and I told him I missed him already.

I'm scared. I'm seriously terrified that something is going to happen to him. I'm scared he's going to get hurt. This kid is very special to me - I consider him my adopted little brother and I would be devastated if anything bad happened to him. Fighting back tears, I'm going to be working overtime on my prayers tonight. God, please keep Seamus safe.